The plants are often found in redwood groves or upon wooded hill-slopes of north exposure, where the dull stems and flowers blend so nicely into the dead needles and leaves upon the ground that it is difficult to detect their presence.
As its name indicates, the root is the counterpart of a spray of branching coral.
Another species--_C. multiflora_, Nutt.--has stems of a colder purple; and the lip of the flower is white, spotted with purple, somewhat fan-shaped and three-lobed.
[Illustration CORAL-ROOT--_Corallorhiza Bigelovii_.]
CALIFORNIA LILAC. BLUE MYRTLE. BLUE-BLOSSOM.
_Ceanothus thyrsiflorus_, Esch. Buckthorn Family.
Varying from small, prostrate shrubs in exposed places, to erect shrubs or small trees. _Branches._--Strongly angled; not spiny. _Leaves._--Elliptical; twelve to eighteen lines long; three-nerved; smooth and shining above. _Flowers._--Bright to pale blue, rarely white; in dense clusters about three inches long, terminating the usually elongated, somewhat leafy peduncles. _Capsules._--Globose; two lines in diameter; smooth, not crested; slightly lobed. (See _Ceanothus_.) _Hab._--Near the coast, from Monterey northward into Oregon.
In the spring our chaparral-covered slopes begin to take on a bluish tinge, like the misty smoke of distant camp-fires, for which the blossoms of the California lilac are responsible. This is a graceful evergreen shrub, with rich, shining leaves, among which the abundant feathery clusters of tiny blue flowers find a charming setting. The blossoms are deliciously fragrant, filling the cool air with perfume.
This shrub is never found far away from the coast, and it reaches its greatest beauty in Mendocino County, where it becomes a tree, sometimes thirty-five feet high. Its wood is exceedingly brittle. In early days it used to be cultivated in San Francisco gardens before it was crowded out by foreign shrubs, often far less worthy.
It is known in some localities as "blue myrtle," and in others as "blue-blossom." The name "California lilac," by which it is most often known, is more generally and more appropriately applied to this species of _Ceanothus_ than to any of the others.
The dark seeds are a favorite food of the quail.
[Illustration CALIFORNIA LILAC--_Ceanothus thyrsiflorus_.]